Throughout the course of the following investigation, I will be exploring a variety of methods to discover how a changed variable affects the speed in which a controlled type of paper (printer paper), formed into a model helicopter will descend from a specified height. Variables There is an abundance of variables in which I can change throughout the duration of this analysis that ultimately may have an affect on the speed that my helicopter falls.

The first variable possible is the wingspan; my reason for choosing this variable in my investigation is that, as the surface area of the wing decreases, this leads to speed of the helicopter increases proportionally to the size of the wings. Evidence to support this is that the air resistance will have a smaller surface area and as the helicopter drops friction between the helicopter and the air molecules will convert kinetic energy into heat energy, if less wingspan is available their will be less friction, therefore the helicopter will fall faster.

In order to ensure a fair investigation, I must consider the thickness of the paper I use to make my helicopter, as this too may affect the rate in which the helicopter falls therefore I will not be able to judge whether the wing length was the deciding factor or whether the type of paper had a decisive role. This leads me to my next variable I could choose to explore, which is the mass of the paper helicopter. In order to implement and successfully accomplish the effects on mass of the helicopter, I would add paper clips to the bottom, which on average have a total mass of 0. 25g to the helicopter.

This supplementary weight would cause a greater resultant force in the favour of gravity, which would cause a greater acceleration. This is because the weight is great than the drag force, causing there to be an unbalanced force. The force necessary to accelerate an object by a given amount depends on the object’s mass, therefore the greater the mass, the greater the force must be. Chosen Variable I have decided choosing the total surface area of the wingspan in my investigation and the reasoning behind this decision is that I believe this variable from my preliminary work would be much better to collect results from for my analysis.

When executing my preliminary tests prior to this investigation, I noticed that when dropping my helicopter with an altered mass, the vertical acceleration time did not seem to have considerable differences between the starting and finishing points as it did for the wingspan. Therefore, this would make the investigation very difficult to accomplish since there is not much evidence to examine. So I have come to the decision of changing the wingspan, as I think it will provide a more reliable set of results, and will be able to explain more clearly in scientific reasoning for the increase in speed. Prediction.

I believe that as I slowly decrease the helicopter’s wingspan by gradually measuring and cutting 1 cm off my wing length each time repeatedly should lead to an overall increase of the helicopters vertical acceleration. My plan is to be able to show that my hypothesis is correct but in order to ensure this I must be able to relate the information to the Speed formula to calculate the speed at which the helicopter gradually falls from the certain height.

Overall, I believe the graph will show a negative correlation for both wingspan to time taken to fall and the Speed in relation to surface are of the wings.i?? ormula: Speed = Distance Time My prediction for the speed of the helicopter is that as the wingspan decreases the vertical speed of the paper helicopter increases, which I believe is as a result of the rotation of the wings going through a different cylinder of air each occasion, which suggests the fact that a wing span of 8cm would have a cylinder volume of air of ? r2. Therefore, as the wingspan decreases, the amount of air molecules contained inside the cylinder of air would be decreased proportionally to the wingspan.

Furthermore, this would conclude in less air resistance against the force of gravity that forces the paper helicopter to fall because of the reduction of the wingspan, less air resistance would be needed to restrain the overall vertical acceleration. Although, as the helicopter gradually gains speed, the air resistances would increase likewise, until it becomes so great that it pushes against forces of Gravity, which ultimately forces the helicopter to vertically accelerate downwards.

Nevertheless, eventually the resistance force will become equal to the opposing force, which in this case is Gravity, thus resulting the helicopter in not accelerating anymore since the forces are balanced. Therefore, it has met its Terminal Velocity (maximum speed). In relation to other theories, the three laws of Motion by Sir Isaac Newton begin to investigate Gravitational attraction and discovered that there’s a gravitational attraction between all masses, giving everything a weight. This suggests that everything without air must have the same acceleration, which is ten m/s.

This would mean that without gravity applying forces to push the helicopter downwards, it would still eventually land, because of its mass and because of this I would be made to believe that this may another reason for the acceleration of my helicopter. He also discovered that in most changes of Velocity, more than one force is acting on the accelerated object, such concurrent forces produce a signal net force. If the force pushing down on the helicopter is greater than the upwards draft, there will be a net force in the downward direction, therefore the helicopter will accelerate in that direction.

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